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September 11, 2001: Was God Present or Absent?
-Ravi Zacharias
Excerpted from a chapter of the new book Light in the Shadow of
Jihad: The Struggle for Truth by Ravi Zacharias (Multnomah
Publishers, 2002). Used by permission.
Every thinking person has at some time raised the question, Where
is God in the midst of suffering? That question without doubt
echoed in millions of minds on September 11, and continues to do
so. If illustration were argument, an event such as this would give
fodder to both sides of the issueto those who want to establish
the complete absence of God and to those who testify that He exists
and is involved in the circumstances of our lives. To a watching
world, the finest testimonials to the faith of the nation were the
crowded churches the following Sunday and the extraordinary
national memorial service. President Bush himself planned the
service and led the nation to seek the comfort of God in that time
of crisis.
Stepping back from the scene, two starkly different stories from
September 11 represent the struggle of the search for God. One
story was told by the men of Ladder 6, a company of the New York
City Fire Department. Seven firemen were helping a
sixty-nine-year-old woman by the name of Josephine down from the
seventy-third floor of one of the World Trade Center towers. These
brave men, already laboring under 110 pounds of equipment on their
backs, led Josephine step by step down the staircase. At times, she
was ready to give up, but they helped, encouraged, inspired, and
assured her she would make it. They were like angels to me, she
said. She would stop to catch her breath and they would stop with
her. She started to shiver with fear and one gave her his jacket.
One floor at a time they got her down until, finally, she could
walk no more and just sat down on one of the steps of the fourth
floor.
They waited with her, coaxing her to stand up and resume walking
because they were almost to the ground floor. But she could not
move, and they refused to leave her. Suddenly, they heard and felt
the floors beneath them give way under the tremendous weight of the
collapsing building, and they were hurtled down with terrific force
and enveloped in a suffocating cloud of pitch-black smoke. One of
them even prayed, God, if this is it, please let it be
quick.
But as the noise lessened and the smoke began to clear, they found
that they had settled over the rubble of the caved-in floors below
them. Miraculously, Josephine had refused to go any further at the
one point that remained intact as the building fell. All seven
firemen plus Josephine were eventually brought into the daylight of
safety.
Had we continued descending when we were pleading with her to keep
moving, they said, we would have been killed by the crush of the
floors above us. One of them added, Josephine was like an angel
sent from God to stop us so that we could be safe.
How can we react to a story such as this but to concede that those
who were rescued in this way saw the hand of God leading, guiding,
and stopping their steps?
Yet, not every story ended like Josephines. The hearts of
thousands of others who lost loved ones may well throb with a
different emotion. I think of one young woman who, through weeks of
struggle, torn by indecision at the marriage proposal of a young
man, finally made her choice during the night. In the pre-dawn
hours of the 11th she phoned his office at the World Trade Center
from her home in California. Her message awaited him when he
arrived at work, with words of love and the welcome news that she
would marry him. But at midmorning when she retrieved her own
messages, her world was unforgettably changed. The voice she heard
was not the voice of a man exultant at the news of her acceptance.
Instead, she listened to the terror in his voice as he told her
that he loved her with all his heart, but his building had been
struck by an airplane and was beginning to crumble before his eyes.
No angels dragged him to safety.
Was God near or far? Any time a catastrophic event happens,
numerous human-interest stories give God glory, while others give
Him blame.
The Problem Is Greater Than We Think
Theologians have an interesting description for this predicament.
They call it the hiddenness of God, or divine hiding. Why does
God not make His presence more obvious? Many arguments are offered
for why God hides in a world that seeks to see Him.
The answer is ultimately found in the divine purposes of God. It is
not that God has absconded or is absent; it is that there is a
divine purpose behind His visibility or invisibility. If one can
rightly read the clues, the mystery is opened up in profound ways.
Just as evil can be understood only in the light of the ultimate
purpose, so also must Gods presence or seeming absence be judged
on the basis of His purpose.
Certainly, antagonists do not hold their fire on this issue. Yale
philosopher Norwood Russell Hanson criticizes Gods absence in this
way:
Suppose that on next Tuesday
morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are
knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear shattering
thunderclap. Snow swirls; leaves drop from trees; The earth heaves
and buckles; Buildings topple and towers tumble; The sky is ablaze
with an eerie, silvery light. Just then, as all the people of this
world look up, the heavens openThe clouds pull apartRevealing an
unbelievably immense and radiant Zeus-like figure, towering above
us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightning plays
across the features of His Michelangeloid face. He then points down
at me and exclaims, for every man, woman and child to hear, I have
had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and
word-watching in matters of Theology. Be assured, N. R. Hanson that
I do most certainly exist. 1
Just to assure us that he was not kidding, Hanson adds, Please do
not dismiss this example as a playful, irreverent Disney-oid
contrivance. The conceptual point here is that if such a remarkable
event were to transpire, I for one should certainly be convinced
that God does exist.
I cant blame Hanson for representing his case in such melodramatic
terms. I too would love for God to make some indisputable
appearance; a rending of the skies with a sound and light
accompaniment. But I am not at all sure that believability is as
simple as that. So, I have a question for this professor: Suppose
this actually happened, exactly the way you asked for it. Would you
be satisfied with that epiphany if, moments later while backing out
of your driveway, you accidentally ran over your five-year-old son?
What would you want from God then? Would you be content with the
vision of God that you had experienced a few minutes before, or
would you demand an explanation for this tragedy, as well?
Sporadic supernatural demonstrations by God would not satisfy our
insistence that He be constantly accountable to us for His actions.
The demand that we place before Himthat just one incontrovertible
miracle would dispel all doubt in every other case of divine
hidingmay well be another intellectual smoke screen we hide
behind.
That expectation that we put upon God tells us more about ourselves
than it does about God. It is ironic, is it not, that Hanson asks
for some kind of thunderous event with God in the skies, and yet he
is probably among those who dismiss as a chance event the Big Bang
of the beginnings of the world? No thoughts of Gods involvement
there are entertained.
Numerous times in the Scriptures, signs were asked from God, and
they were given. But in spite of that, trust in God was not
automatic. Probably no disciple received more displays of Gods
power than the apostle Peter. He was one of only three who
witnessed the Transfiguration of Jesus. Jesus had taken His
disciples to the top of a mountain where they saw a sight not given
to any other human eye. They saw Jesus body begin to glow with a
whiteness that was almost blinding. Suddenly Moses and Elijah
appeared and began to talk with Jesus. Peter asked Jesus if he
could build shelters there for the three luminaries, but a voice
thundered from the heavens saying, This is my Son. Listen to Him
(see Luke 9:35). This experience had everythingSight! Sound!
Words! Power! Peter was so overcome that he did not want to go down
from the mountain. But Jesus told them it was time to return to the
humdrum world of their day-to-day existence.
Jesus was not playing games with his disciples; giving them a
glimpse of the eternal and then taking it away from them. Rather,
He was showing them the greater reality from which He came and to
which will He take us, without denying the present reality through
which He works in us. Both are important. We cannot escape the
struggle of day-to-day thinking and doing and being by some sort of
spellbinding incident that suddenly invades our circumstances. Life
is to be lived at a level where the norm becomes meaningful in the
light of eternal values, rather than interpreting eternal values
according to what is normal for us. That is key to understanding
our yearning for the future and our struggle with the
present.
But there is more. Jesus was trying to help His disciples to
understand the frailty He saw in themtheir chronic bent to be
enchanted every moment. Peter saw the proof of Jesus divinity in
His transfiguration. He did not doubt after that who Jesus was.
Yet, when Jesus was arrested, Peter floundered and even denied that
he ever knew Jesus. He was in momentary awe of the miraculous but
could not trust God for the future. This failing was also common in
Israels exodus from Egypt. The people would witness a miracle and
follow God with national repentance. But as soon as God seemed to
hide for some time, the grumbling and skepticism began. Peter was
in momentary awe of the miraculous but could not trust God for the
future.
The examples of Israel and of Peter are repeated endlessly in our
own experiences. We have a limitless ability to trust God only when
it suits our purpose. Rather than allowing God to be God and
serving Him for who He is, we actually try to play God and He
becomes our subject, expected to do our bidding at our every whim.
I do not know of any greater fickleness in the human heart than
this. We lie to ourselves after a miraculous event, believing it
will have staying power. But the moment another steep hill appears
before us, we wonder whether the miracle we witnessed some time
back actually happened or was only a delusion. Reality is
threatened by this fickleness, and if we do not understand and
accept this, we live in an illusionary world of chronic skepticism.
Our demand for more information is, in a real sense, a fight
against our finitude.
The Solution Must Go Deeper Than We Seek
A subtle delusion keeps us from the real battle. The truth behind
our clamor for explanation is that we assume ourselves to be only
intellectual entities and thus, if only our intellect can be
satisfied, we will be content. This mangling of our personalities
lies at the root of our disconnectedness from the way God has
framed reality.
One of the most powerful encounters in the Bible is between Jesus
and a learned man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus recognized the
supernatural character of Jesus and said to Him, Teacher, no one
could do the miracles you are doing unless God is with him (see
John 3:2). That tacit endorsement could have easily elicited a
commendation from Jesus. Instead, Jesus challenged Nicodemus that
if he wanted to be part of Gods kingdom, he needed to have a new
birth. This was not the direction Nicodemus had planned on going,
but Jesus knew exactly what He was about. He was telling Nicodemus
that it is not the miracle over matter that ultimately has staying
power; it is the miracle over the way we think about reality that
has eternal ramifications. We are not all intellect, and therefore
some need beyond the intellect needs to be met.
But there is a second point I wish to make. We look for God to be
something concrete, something we can see or handle or fully
explain. This is a fallacy born out of our addiction to the
external, and human history has repeatedly challenged that
disposition. There are many evidences of Gods miracle-working
presence. Incredible stories abound for which there is often no
natural interpretation that satisfactorily explains them.
The supernatural is possible. It happens, but it does not lead to
the greatest miracle in a life. For you see, anyone can take a
miraculous story and explain it a dozen different ways. At best it
just proves that there is a power beyond our own. So where does
that leave us? What God seeks in every individual is not just
companionship based on His intervention, but communion with Him
based on His indwelling. That is what makes the difference when a
building is collapsing. It is not whether a hand grabs your hand
and rescues you from the carnage; it is that no matter what
happens, His strength empowers you to rise beyond the
devastation.
If mankind were only mind or intellect, evidence from the physical
world would be all that mattered. But there is a depth to our
being; a spiritual essence that goes deeper than our intellect.
That essence hungers for intimacy. If you will pardon the crassness
of the analogy, making love, as popular jargon describes sexual
consummation without deep commitment, is no more love than the
embrace of a pickpocket signifies affection. The spiritual, not the
physical, is the essence of our being, and for that quality of
nearness, only communion with the living God satisfies. We are
spiritual beings and God responds to us in spirit. If mankind were
only mind or intellect, evidence from the physical world would be
all that mattered. But there is a depth to our being; a spiritual
essence that goes deeper than our intellect. That essence hungers
for intimacy.
The reason this kind of communion is needed is well articulated by
the scientist and mystic, Blaise Pascal. He argued that if there
were no obscurity to God, humanity would not feel its corruption,
and if there were no light to bring Him near, humanity could not
hope for a cure. That thought, coming from the father of the
modern-day computer, is even more significant. He knew that though
empirical truth is good, it is not good enough. He longed for the
mystery and the intimacy of God, something mere intellect could not
deliver.
What is the difference between companionship and communion? In
companionship with God we come to Him, recognizing our limit of
strength. In communion with God we stay with Him, recognizing our
depth of spirit. In companionship with God we long to see and
understand. In communion with God we long to feel and belong. Those
who seek companionship without communion seek power without
commitment; the display without dedication, and proof without
love.
This truth eludes our pragmatic bent and reconstructs many of the
realities God intended for us to live with. English spiritual
writer Anthony Bloom underscored this ailment of ours well:
We complain that God does not
make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for Him,
but what about the 23½ hours during which God may be knocking at
our door and we answer, I am busy. I am sorry. Or when we do not
answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of
our heart, of our mind, of our conscience, of our life. So there is
a situation in which we have no right to complain of the absence of
God, because we are a great deal more absent than He ever is.
2
We complain that God does not make Himself present to us for the
few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the 23½ hours during
which God may be knocking at our door and we answer, I am busy. I
am sorry.
But this is where we break free from the entanglements and
distractions to find the hand of God. Communion with God takes
place in our solitariness before it takes effect in community.
Henri Nouwen captured this profound truth: In solitude we can
unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discern in the center
of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is
given to us. Through that solitude He leads us to communion. 3 In
other words, it is not our victories that make us who we are; it is
His divine presence that carries us through both victory and
defeat, and defines us.
Is this possibly what C. S. Lewis had in mind in The Voyage of The
Dawn Treader? Lucy has been desperately seeking the presence of
Aslan when suddenly He appears before her. Oh Aslan, she says,
It was kind of you to come.
I have been here all the time, said He, but you have just made
me visible.
Aslan, said Lucy, almost a little reproachfully. Dont make fun
of me. As if anything I could do would make you visible!
It did, said Aslan. Do you think I wouldnt obey my own
rules?
What are His rules? You will seek me and find me when you seek for
me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).
I would not at all be surprised to learn someday, when the words
and thoughts of those who died in the devastation of September 11
are revealed in Gods presence, that many, many of them knew a
profound sense of His presence, even when they knew life in its
earthly sojourn was coming to an end.
There Are Appointments from Which We Cannot
Run
There is at least one profound lesson that I draw from the life and
death stories of September 11. There is an appointed time for each
of us when life will meet its end. God has entrusted us with common
sense and wisdom that we must express in our day-to-day activities.
We are not to throw life away. We are not licensed to court danger.
But sometimes we can think that we are safe when we are not. Real
safety is only to be found in His presence. Wherever we go,
whatever we do, we are safe in that communion with Him. Safety is
not found in seeking an escape from His appointments.
One-time chaplain to the United States Senate, Peter Marshall, told
a story, called Rendezvous in Samara, of a man who worked as the
servant of a wealthy merchant. He had gone into town to shop for
the day when suddenly he felt someone brush heavily against his
shoulder. Somewhat offended, he turned toward the person who had
jostled him, and found himself staring into a pair of eyes that
spoke death to him. Panicking, he dropped everything and ran home.
His master saw him running breathlessly toward the house, and met
him on the front steps.
What on earth is the matter? asked the master.
Oh, sir! Someone in the marketplace rudely brushed me, and when I
turned to face him, he looked like the Angel of Death to me. He too
had a look of shock on his face. It was almost as if he wanted to
grab me but then backed away. I am afraid, sir. I dont want to go
back to the market.
Saddle one of our horses and ride all day till you reach the
distant village of Samara, the master said. Stay there till you
get word from me that it is safe for you to return.
The servant rode off, and the master made his way to the market to
find the person who had so frightened his servant. As he wound his
way through the crowded streets, he suddenly came face to face with
this strange looking individual.
Who are you? the merchant said. Are you the one who just scared
my servant?
Yes, indeed.
Why did you frighten him?
Well, I was truly surprised to see him here. I am the Angel of
Death, and I chose to spend the day here before heading to my stop
for tonight. You see, it was not so much that I surprised him, as
that he surprised me. I did not expect to see him here because I
have an appointment with him in Samara tonight.
That is the reality we all live with. Death is the moment we all
seek to flee, yet it is a moment that the Bible says has been set
for each of us before it ever comes to be. King David said it this
way,
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mothers womb.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13,16)
We must learn to live every day to the fullest, in healthy
recognition that one day it will be the last. Was it not ironic
that one of the passengers who died in the American Airlines crash
in Queens, New York, in early November 2001 had escaped the inferno
of the World Trade Center tragedy in September? Another passenger
on that plane was a young sailor who had just returned from
extended duty overseas on the USS Enterprise.
We can flee the marketplace, only to find that the quiet village of
Samara is where our rendezvous was to be.
There Is a Friendship in Which We Cannot
Lose
The Bible tells of the time when Lazarus, one of Jesus friends,
took ill. His family sent word for Jesus to come and heal him, but
by the time Jesus came, Lazarus was dead. His sisters greeted Jesus
with the sharp words, If you had been here, our brother would not
have died (see John 11:21). Jesus went to the tomb and wept. But
as He dried His tears, He performed the remarkable miracle of
raising Lazarus from the dead.
But if Jesus knew He was going to do this, why did He weep before
the tomb? I suggest that He wept because He knew that someday, even
with this momentary reprieve, Lazarus would come to his Samara,
and the pain of death would once again be very real.
Jesus miracle was to remind them that Samara was not the end. He
said to the family gathered, I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies (see John
11:25). His miracle is not to be there to keep us from dying. It is
to take us through death into His eternal presence, which is the
place of ultimate communion.
Some years ago, I was in Israel and visited the village of Bethany
where Lazarus body once lay before Jesus raised him. A few months
ago, I stood by the tomb of Lazarus in Larnaca, Cyprus, where he
had become the bishop of the church. That tomb was excavated nearly
one thousand years ago, and the simple inscription on the grave
said, Lazarus, Bishop of LarnacaFour days dead, Friend of
Jesus.
The first tomb reminded me of the possibility of the miracle; the
second, of the reality of death. The inscription spoke of the
greatest miracle and reality of allcommunion with the living God.
That intimate friendship is the kind of communion that helps you
face death knowing that your Friend is with you beyond the
grave.
Even the Koran recognizes that Jesus had the power to raise the
dead; a power that it does not attribute to Muhammad. That same
power was in the World Trade Center on September 11. Bin Laden and
his band of murderers may have had the power to kill, but Jesus
Christ has the power to raise us up again. That is what communion
with Him brings. His presence is within us, and terrorists can
never take that away.
Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi
Zacharias International Ministries
1 ThomasV. Morris, Making Sense of It All (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), 93. 2 Henri Nouwen, The Only
Necessary Thing ( New York, N.Y.: Crossroads Publishing Co., 1999),
30. 3 Ibid., n.p.
